Week 5: Strep & Politics

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Monday, July 11, 2016

By:

Marissa Murray

The end of week five marks the halfway point of this internship which is crazy. The weeks have been going by so quickly!

Week five was a rough one for me. I came down with a fever on Monday which turned into a horrible case of strep on Tuesday so I only was able to make it to a half day of work on Friday. I barely left the apartment except for a trip to the doctors, and a hazy trek down the block to CVS for advil, juice, and some terrible ice cream choices. I thought some Ben and Jerrys Chunky Money would soothe my sore throat?? What the heck was I thinking - clearly I was delusional. Not only does it have chunks of walnuts and caramel... it is banana flavored ice cream. Gross. Even not sick I would never pick that.

Friday was spent working again on my FYI draft, which will hopefully be published today, Monday. Watching the markup was fun as there was quite a bit of pointed language being thrown around between committee members. This one guy, Rep. Takano, was trying to get his amendment passed and made some solid points. It's funny (and sad) to see how the two parties have such staggeringly different views. They almost seem to be arguing different things, no one really ever directly answers the other. Takano, a democrat, wanted to strike the word basic from the legislation, and argued that is it unrealistic to attempt to build policy around a separation of basic and applied research, essentially allowing the researchers and those in charge to choose, as they actually know what's going on. Seems resonable, right? In response, Chairmen Smith, a republican, opposed his amendent, claiming that basic research is the priority of the federal goverment. Also reasonable, it is crucial that the government supports basic research. It's really close, but Smith never directly answers Takano's points. It's all rather confusing. Anyway, back to my article, I had to adapt it a decent amount as it's new focus is kind of an overview of both the original hearing and the markup. Turns out the bills will be on the floor this week so we are trying to get the FYI out before the house votes on them.